Foam Lake Birding No. 106

FOAM LAKE BIRDING
No. 106
Hello from southern Texas. Fortunately our trip down was uneventful and we even saw a few lifers along the way. We left on January 10th just escaping the storm back home, but at the same time not driving into the blizzard that was raging in South Dakota and Nebraska at the time. By the time we had to drive through that region the storm had passed. Talk about snow and snowplows. Thankfully, the roads were not icy so traveling was good, although, the quite heavy ground level drifting was mesmerizing at times.
We did see some birds along the way that we found interesting. From southern Saskatchewan to Kansas there were pheasants everywhere. We also saw three birds that breed in the high Arctic in the summer and spend winters south of the tree line well onto the prairies. The first were the ever present Snow Buntings that are common in the Foam Lake area. The second were lifers for my wife and me. At first we thought they were off-colour Snow buntings, but a quick check with our birdbook showed them to be Lapland Longspurs, cousins of the Horned Larks. Because Lapland Longspurs do not winter in the parkland region of the prairies only on the open short grass prairie, I had never seen them during my younger years. In the years that we have been there we have simply overlooked them. Finally, my wife noticed a hawk floating over the freeway in North Dakota directly in front of us. When we got close it flared clearly showing the distinctive markings on its underwings identifying it as the Rough Legged Hawk. I had seen them before but my wife had not so she got a second lifer and near home.
When we arrived in Texas the birding community was abuzz about the sighting of a White Throated Thrush (formerly White Throated Robin). We have not seen it yet, but hope to soon. As compensation, we did see our first Fulvous Whistling Ducks.
Since we have been coming here we have seen another quite rare tropical robin (now thrush) that is the national bird of Costa Rica, the Clay Coloured Thrush. They have actually started nesting here in the Rio Grand Valley, but are not common by any means.
In the last year or so ornithologists have done some renaming in the thrush family. Through years of common usage members of the thrush family that had spotted or striped abdomens were called thrushes; those that were blue were called bluebirds; the rest were called robins. As always, there were a few exceptions. Now, with the changes, bluebirds are still the same, but all robins without red breasts are now thrushes. Therefore, our robin is still the American Robin as is the much rarer Rufous Backed Robin – both have red breasts.
This week’s photo of the Clay Coloured Thrush was taken several years ago in McCallum when it was still known as a robin. In a colour photo it looks like a washed out American Robin with a light tan coloured breast and no white throat; in black and white it looks just like the American Robin.

Foam Lake Birding No. 86

FOAM LAKE BIRDING
No. 86
Will the rain never stop? It seems that the sun barely comes up before we are deluged again. Shades of the mid 1950s. The constant rains are not good news for farmers but the grass, trees and shrubs are luxuriant. The birds, especially waterfowl, are thriving.
This week I will finally finish the last article on attracting birds to our yards. As much as food and water can and do attract birds, appropriate plantings of grasses, flowers, shrubs and trees can dramatically increase the numbers of birds visiting one's yard. If and when the decision is made to attract birds with plants then three basic questions have to be considered: how many plants, what kinds of plants and where should they be planted.
Also, two different kinds of yards have to be taken into consideration - farm and urban. What works for one will work for the other with one major difference - farms are bigger. Farm yards have a more or less unlimited area whereas town yards are quite restricted. A farmstead built on an open field and then surrounded by a perimeter of trees does provide shelter but does not really attract wildlife to any degree. Farm yards with a few acres of natural bush, enhanced by plantings, near buildings really shine. This arrangement attracts not only more birds, but a greater variety of species that would not normally be seen otherwise. In urban areas space is limited and plants have to be chosen carefully.
How many plants should one plant? There is no magic number, but most yards could easily sustain more plants than they usually do. It does take more work, though. Large expanses of lawn studded with a few large trees have a lot of appeal to humans but offer very little for birds. Gardens, including fields, are a little better than lawns but not much. Something else is needed.
Because of our history of European immigration, many of our decorative plants such a lilac, carragana, cotoneaster and Siberian Elm are imports. Native species were not only ignored but removed and replaced with the foreign ones. However, many of our small native fruit trees such as chokecherry, pincherry, saskatoon, hawthorne and highbush cranberry are not only as attractive as the foreign ones but provide nesting sites and food for birds (and man) as well. In Europe, forests have much less undergrowth than the forests in the Americas, and this "ideal" has been carried over from Europe to the new world where it has stuck and stubbornly refused to die. To this day most people treat underbrush as weeds and eliminate it whenever possible preferring large show trees with little or no undergrowth. Incidentally, the word "underbrush" was coined in the new world to describe something that did not exist in the old world - dense undergrowth. In addition to woody plants, domesticated varieties of annuals, perennials and grasses should be included in one's yard plans.
How does one achieve this? It is completely unrealistic to expect somebody to cover the whole yard with trees and brush without gardens and lawns. Birds and people have to coexist; lawns will be maintained and gardens will be planted. However, around the outside edges of yards and along buildings there usually are so called 'dead spots". Small fruit bearing trees and shrubs, such as currants, can be planted here. If at all possible, shrubbery should be planted as thickly as possible to form thickets which our North American birds must have if they are to breed. Examples of a few such birds are Cedar Waxwings, sparrows, warblers and wrens.
To cover a topic of this nature thoroughly would require a small magazine, so this article has been an overview only. For a more thorough discussion check with the Canadian Wildlife Federation and related organizations.
This week's photos are of a robin eating overwintering chokecherries this spring and of a pair of Pine Siskins feeding on Joe Pye Weed (domesticated milkweed) and domestic thistle last August. If nothing else, they do make nice pictures.

Foam Lake Birding No. 83

FOAM LAKE BIRDING
No. 83
With the cold, wet and snowy weather that we have been having lately it is a wonder that any more birds have arrived at all, but they have. Purple Martins, Ruby Crowned Kinglets, Goldfinches, Mourning Doves, Ring Billed Gulls and Franklin's Gulls are just to name a few. Of all the birds listed, only the Purple Martins would have difficulty getting through this last week of snow and rain. Purple Martins feed solely on flying insects that are caught in flight. Because there are no flying insects out right now, I have no idea what the Martins do to survive. Do they temporarily move some place warmer? Do they actually go out and eat something else? Perhaps, they go into a kind of temporary hibernation or torpor which would allow them to last a long time with very little food requirements as some birds and animals do? However, survive they do. This would be a good topic for those inclined to research such things.
In last week's column I mentioned several ways in which birds modified their diets in order to survive the arrival of unexpectedly severe weather. This week I want to describe a scenario in which some birds managed to use the bad weather to not only survive, but to thrive. The heavy rains and snow forced the earthworms to come to the surface in order to avoid drowning. Lawns were vacated by the worms because there was too much water being retained by the grass. Thus they ended up on hard surface areas like driveways, sidewalks and streets. This provided a real bonanza (buffet and all) for Grackles, Robins and Franklin's Gulls. The Grackles and Robins picked worms here and there, but the gulls were much more organized and thorough. A small flock of Franklin's
Gulls landed on the street in front of our house and proceeded to "sweep" the area clean. However, there was a problem. The birds at the back of the flock would have only "leftovers" from the birds at the front. To make sure every bird got its fair share the birds at the back would periodically fly to the front of the line for good pickings. A good system and quite interesting to watch.
Not only do birds survive bad weather, but some are well into nest building. House Sparrows and Grackles are continually picking up nesting material and hauling it to their chosen sites. The Grackles are building their nest in a spruce tree in our neighbour's yard; the sparrows are building theirs in a birdhouse in our yard. One day I was particularly amused by a male House Sparrow trying to get a two foot strip of plastic to the birdhouse. The drag caused by so large an object forced the sparrow to expend a great deal of time and energy. Its flight was slow and laboured, but eventually it succeeded. Why this sparrow would want this strip is beyond me.
This week's photos show a Robin picking up earthworms on the edge of our driveway. Its head is blurred because it was shaking the worm as I snapped the picture. The other photo is of a small flock of Franklin's Gulls feeding on the snowy street in front of our house.